Short bio.  Fran leads the Genome Data Science laboratory at the BRIC (University of Copenhagen) and at the IRB Barcelona.  The lab specializes in large-scale statistical analyses of genomic, transcriptomic and epigenomic data.  Fran obtained his PhD in Molecular biology in 2010 from the University of Zagreb, while working as an early-stage researcher at the RBI (Croatia) on machine learning in comparative genomics. This was followed by a postdoctoral stay at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (as a Marie Curie fellow), studying cancer genome evolution. In 2017 he started his lab at the IRB Barcelona as a Ramón y Cajal fellow.  

Fran is the PI of the ERC Starting & ERC Consolidator projects, an EMBO Young Investigator, an ICREA tenured professor (currently on leave), and a full professor at the University of Copenhagen.  He authored 56 research articles, of that 38 papers as first or senior-author (including in Nature, Cell and Nature Genetics), and 6 invited review articles/book chapters, cited >12k times (H-index=34).

Fran's Google Scholar publication profile >

Research interests.  Computational approaches for elucidating mutational processes that generate genetic diversity within populations and across species, with the goal of understanding mechanisms of mutagenesis and DNA repair.  

Fran is also interested in developing statistical frameworks for detecting genomic signatures of selection, which are often challenging to distinguish from the background DNA sequence variability that results from accumulated mutations.  Such novel methodologies provide opportunities to gain insight into evolution of genomes, by revealing details of the interplay between mutation and selection.  

The biological questions Fran addressed include learning about evolution of gene function and regulation, in particular related to mechanisms underlying stress resistance and disease.  In addition, Fran is interested in distributions of genetic variants in the human germline and soma, which reveal how DNA repair is organized across chromatin.